The next quarterly meeting between ADE AzEDS team and SIS Vendors in Arizona will take place on November 29th at 10am MST

If you did not receive notification about this meeting please reach out to [email protected]

Future meetings are scheduled for Feburary 14, 2023 and May 16, 2023

Special Education Directors,

ADE/ESS is acutely aware of the shortage of qualified special education teachers and related service providers across Arizona. ESS has multiple activities and programs to support PEAs to confront this shortage every school year. The ESS Recruitment and Retention team has created Developing a Grow Your Own Program: A Guide for Special Education Administrators as a reference as you consider developing and implementing a Grow Your Own program as part of your own recruitment and retention efforts.

A Grow Your Own program is an opportunity for school districts and charter schools to assist their community members and currently employed staff who are interested in entering the special education teacher, leader, or related service provider professions. Through tuition reimbursement, the school district or charter organization supports the candidate with a continuum of education that will also help to meet workforce needs.

Public Education Agencies (PEAs) can develop their own tuition reimbursement program using Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) funding sources to support individuals interested in special education certification in early childhood special education, mild/moderate disabilities, moderate/severe disabilities, hearing impaired, or visually impaired, as well as school psychologist and speech-language pathologist certifications. Other special education positions may also qualify.

For more information, please email the ESS Recruitment and Retention Inbox.

Special Education Directors,

The ADE/ESS Assistive Technology (AT) team is excited to announce the 2022–2023 National Presenter Series with Kelli Suding, MEd. This workshop is designed for special educators and related service providers.

“Assistive Technology Integration for All Students”

Date: Tuesday, October 25, 2022

Time: 8:30 a.m.−3:30 p.m.

Fee: $17 (Lunch only)

Where: Laveen Elementary School District

Address: 5001 W Dobbins Road, Laveen, AZ 85339

About Kelli Suding, MEd

Kelli has a background in general and special education classrooms. She holds a master’s degree in Learning and Technology and is certified in both general and special education instruction. Kelli has national, state, and local presentation and training experience. She has a strong understanding and experience in connecting theory to practice. Her instructional experience has been with students requiring mild, moderate, and intense intervention. Kelli’s specializations include universal design for learning, autism, accessible educational materials, assistive technology, Google Chrome accessibility and integration, and specific learning disabilities.

Workshop Description:

“Assistive Technology Integration for All Students”

Creating our classroom instruction with learner variability in the forefront will allow us to be mindful in meeting the needs of all of our students. Oftentimes, the use of assistive technology is the appropriate accommodation to meet those needs. Statements such as “That’s cheating. They need to do that by themselves,” are often comments aligned with the use of appropriate accommodations of accessible educational materials (AEM) and assistive technology (AT) for students with specific disabilities. But how can we promote a culture of universal design for learning (UDL) and at the same time step outside of our “No, it’s not cheating,” echo chamber to have meaningful conversations with educators who may see AT accommodations as a crutch?

This workshop will explore ways to debunk the mindset of “it’s cheating” through personal stories, understanding learning disabilities, short simulations, discussion of the different skill sets of reading, the “what” of AEM, and most importantly, the “why.” Attendees will learn about and have access to free/low-cost simple AT tools for Mac, PC, iOS, and Chrome extensions to turn classroom worksheets and documents into accessible formats, instruction for independent student access, and other assistive technology options.

If you have questions regarding this training, please email our AT inbox.

Register for Assistive Technology Integration for All Students.

Important Suicide Prevention Awareness Month Reminder! The ADE Project AWARE webpage features upcoming training opportunities as well as available online trainings, all of which meet the legislative requirements of ARS 15-120 (The Mitch Warnock Act). To learn more and register for available trainings, visit /wellness/projectaware.  

September is Suicide Prevention Awareness month. How safe is your home? Research shows that access to a gun in the home increases the risk of suicide by 300 percent. According to colleagues at the Suicide Prevention Resource Center, taking a home inventory is important because: 

• Many suicide attempts take place during a short-term crisis, so it is important to consider a person's access to lethal means during these periods of increased risk. 
• Access to lethal means is a risk factor for suicide. 
• Reducing access to lethal means saves lives. 

"Means reduction" refers to reducing a person's access to lethal methods. The Harvard University Means Matter campaign reports: 

• Many suicide attempts occur with little planning during a short-term crisis. 
• Intent isn't all that determines whether an attempter lives or dies; means also matter.
• 90 percent of attempters who survive do NOT go on to die by suicide later. 
• Access to firearms is a risk factor for suicide. 
• Firearms used in youth suicide usually belong to a parent. 
• Reducing access to lethal means saves lives. 

Read more from Harvard School of Public Health on what families and individuals can do to reduce means. You play an important role in helping reduce the rate of suicide in Arizona. 

The School District Employee Report (SDER) On-Line Application is now open to accept employee data. This application is accessible through ADE Connect. You must submit your SDER data by end of day on October 15, 2022.

The updated SDER manual can be viewed here: /sites/default/files/2021/10/SDER%20Manual%20Revised%2010.7.21.pdf

The recorded SDER training can be viewed here: https://youtu.be/RkyRCAeO2VY. 

SDER data is due by 4:30pm on October 15, 2022. 

The FY2023 Memo 23-018 that includes instructions for submitting data has been published in the memo section of the School Finance webpage: https://schoolfinancereports.azed.gov/Memos

If you have any questions about your SDER, please contact the [email protected]

Charter schools sponsored by the AZ State Board for Charter Schools, universities and community colleges are not obligated to submit the data and should not submit data.

School Finance has received questions about emails that districts have received related to EEO-5 data collection.  ADE will complete the submission of 2022 data for all districts that are required to submit by the November 22, 2022 due date. 

The EEO-5 Report, formally known as the Elementary-Secondary Staff Information Report, is a joint requirement of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) of the U.S. Department of Education. It is conducted biennially, in the even numbered years, and covers all public elementary and secondary school districts with 100 or more employees in the United States.  

Mandated under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, this report provides information on the district employment totals, employees’ job category, and sex and race/ethnic groups as of October 1 of the survey year. More information on this Report can be found here. 

DATA MANAGEMENT ALERT

Exceptional Student Services (ESS) Discipline Data Collection (DDC) Application Opening September 14

The ESS DDC application will open for fiscal year (FY) 2023 incident entry on September 14, 2022.

There are no significant changes to the DDC application this school year. ESS requires all Public Education Agencies (PEAs) to manually enter or bulk upload discipline data incidents into the DDC application. The XML Schema for PEAs choosing the bulk upload option is unchanged.

Training on entering and/or uploading incidents into the DDC application is available on the Discipline Data Collection page. This page has a DDC Manual with step-by-step instructions for entering or uploading data. A webinar recording is also available that includes a demonstration of entering and uploading discipline incidents.

FY 2023 discipline data is due July 15, 2023, aligning with the close of AzEDS data reporting for the fiscal year. PEAs submitting discipline data into AzEDS will not be consumed for FY 2023 as AzEDS is not the system of record for FY 2023.

Beginning FY 2024, all PEAs will enter discipline data through their student information system and sync to AzEDS. ESS will release more details regarding FY 2024 incident data requirements soon.

ESS still requires that PEAs that volunteered to pilot the submission of discipline incident data into AzEDS data this school year also enter or upload the discipline incident data in the DDC application. ESS will send more information regarding the pilot program soon to those specific PEAs.

If you have questions or need assistance, please do not hesitate to contact us at [email protected].

DATA MANAGEMENT ALERT

FY23 ESS October 1 Parentally Placed Private School Students Training Webinar 

ESS Data Management will host a training webinar for the ESS October 1 Parentally Placed Private School Students on September 28, 2022, from 10:00 am – 11:00 am.

This webinar is intended for School Districts with geographic boundaries ONLY. (Charter schools are not responsible for private school count or required for proportionate share.)

Please join us to learn how to accurately count and report your students attending a private, non-profit elementary or secondary school (including homeschools) within your school district boundaries and how the counts are used to calculate your district’s proportionate share obligation. If you are unable to join a recording of this webinar with captions will be made available on our website when finalized.

Registration is required to attend: Register for the ESS October 1 Parentally Placed Private School Students Training Webinar.  

If you have any questions, please direct them to [email protected]. 

School Finance has received several questions about the impact of student enrollment and withdrawal on Empowerment Scholarship Account program eligibility. A few questions that have come up are how long it takes before the Arizona Department of Education (ADE) is notified of student withdrawal from a public school, what is the process for notification of withdrawal, and what happens if a student that has been awarded an Empowerment Scholarship Account enrolls in public school. Please read the information below and feel free to pass this information on to registrars and others who may need this information, including parents who are requesting information about their child’s withdrawal.

The most common question that we have received is when ADE will be notified of student withdrawal from public school. Any time a student withdraws from a school, there will be a delay between when the withdrawal occurs and when that information is submitted to ADE. Each school district and charter records student data, including withdrawals, in their own Student Information System (SIS) and these systems can be set-up to submit data to ADE at different intervals. ARS 15-1042 specifies that a school district or charter is only required to submit student data to ADE electronically once every twenty school days, though in practice most districts and charter submit data more often. Regardless of the interval at which a school district or charter chooses to submit data, there will always be at least a day or two delay between when data is entered at a school and when it appears in ADE systems.

Please note: Districts and charters do not submit paper records of withdrawal to ADE. The information about the withdrawal is submitted through the district or charter Student Information System.

We have also received questions about students that have been awarded Empowerment Scholarship Accounts utilizing services from public schools. The ESA Parent Handbook explains scenarios in which an ESA student may enroll in public school and also the impact of improper enrollment. We suggest that district and charter staff encourage parents to work directly with the ADE ESA team as specific questions come up.

For more information about the Empowerment Scholarship Account program please visit the Empowerment Scholarship Account program website.